Marie Antoinette — Volume 05 eBook

The Queen was always persuaded that this horrible
deed was occasioned by some indiscretion; and she
informed me that M. Foulon had drawn up two memorials
for the direction of the King’s conduct at the
time of his being called to Court on the removal of
M. Necker; and that these memorials contained two
schemes of totally different nature for extricating
the King from the dreadful situation in which he was
placed. In the first of these projects M. Foulon
expressed himself without reserve respecting the criminal
views of the Duc d’Orleans; said that he ought
to be put under arrest, and that no time should be
lost in commencing a prosecution against him, while
the criminal tribunals were still in existence; he
likewise pointed out such deputies as should be apprehended,
and advised the King not to separate himself from
his army until order was restored.

His other plan was that the King should make himself
master of the revolution before its complete explosion;
he advised his Majesty to go to the Assembly, and
there, in person, to demand the cahiers,

[Cahiers, the memorials or lists of complaints, grievances,
and requirements of the electors drawn up by the primary
assemblies and sent with the deputies.]

and to make the greatest sacrifices to satisfy the
legitimate wishes of the people, and not to give the
factious time to enlist them in aid of their criminal
designs. Madame Adelaide had M. Foulon’s
two memorials read to her in the presence of four
or five persons. One of them, Comte Louis de
Narbonne, was very intimate with Madame de Stael, and
that intimacy gave the Queen reason to believe that
the opposite party had gained information of M. Foulon’s
schemes.

It is known that young Barnave, during an aberration
of mind, since expiated by sincere repentance, and
even by death, uttered these atrocious words:
“Is then the blood now, flowing so pure?”
when M. Berthier’s son came to the Assembly
to implore the eloquence of M. de Lally to entreat
that body to save his father’s life. I
have since been informed that a son of M. Foulon,
having returned to France after these first ebullitions
of the Revolution, saw Barnave, and gave him one of
those memorials in which M. Foulon advised Louis XVI.
to prevent the revolutionary explosion by voluntarily
granting all that the Assembly required before the
14th of July. “Read this memorial,”
said he; “I have brought it to increase your
remorse: it is the only revenge I wish to inflict
on you.” Barnave burst into tears, and
said to him all that the profoundest grief could dictate.